CARDRUNNERS

Every summer we will go golfing with all of my friends. Most of my friends almost never play golf so it's more just hanging out then anything. We always end up drinking a lot and having a good time. Actually the first time we did it we actually got in a fight by the club house. It's the only time I've ever heard of a fight breaking out on a golf course. There were 3 guys in the group in front of us who were about 25 and hammered. For some reason (i forget) we exchanged some words on the 18th tee. I think one of my friends accidently hit into them. He apologized, but the guys were jackasses so both groups starting talking shit. Well we let them hit and they got out to their ball. My other friend, who is terrible, went ahead and hit. He hit the best shot of his life and actually hit one of their carts. They screamed at us from the fairway and we yelled back, but I assumed that was all it would come to. We finished up the last hole w/ nothing happening. As everyone was cleaning out their carts 2 of the guys from the group in front of us drove in next to my buddy and hit him with a golf club. Considering we had 3 college athletes, including a boxer, with us, that was a terrible move by them. My friends started just wailing on the 3 guys. They all had bloody faces when it was done and it turns out one had to get 12 stiches on his face. I was actually in the bathroom for most of the fight and only caught the end. I'm pretty pissed I didn't see it all. Anyway, it was dumb and I was embarrassed that happend, but it makes a good story.

Back to this year...we drank a lot, but didn't cause any trouble this time. We just had a solid good time. I played pretty well for awhile, but the wheels came off as I drank more. By about the 14th hole I started playing terrible. it's okay though, I was just playing for fun anyway.

Today I am going to play a bunch of MTTs. I am especially excited for the 1k event on stars.

I went to see Trey Anastasio yesterday. I used to be a big Phish fan (Trey was lead singer) and I still enjoy the music when I listen to it. Trey always puts on a good concert and he definitely didn't dissapoint tihs time. I took off from work about 30 min early and took the express train downtown. We found a bar that didn't card us and drank there for awhile. We ended up doing a few rounds of shots and I was pretty drunk by the time we left the bar. We drank a ton at the concert and just got retarded.

Right now, I'm wishing I hadn't gotten so retarded. I haven't had to get up early after drinking a lot in a long time (mostly because I haven't been drinking at all during the week). I have to say that coffee really seems to help with hangovers. Also, I took a 30 min nap at 8am. I got to work on time, but opted to go inside 30 min late so that I could try to look like a normal person and not someone who looks like they are dying. I think the nap helped me achieve that.

The office is totally dead today and the guy that typically is the one to give me work is not here today. It should be a very relaxed Friday. Hopefully I can leave early too.

My Vegas trip is confirmed now. I am definitely going. For awhile there it looked like it wasn't going to work out. The problem was that I need to be in Atlanta for work on Monday July 31st. I was able to work it out with my company so that I could fly from Vegas to Atlanta and then back to Chicago at the end of the week. It worked out well because that meant that the company picked up half the price of my flight. When you book a flight this late, it is very expensive, so that was huge on their part. I will get out there about 6pm on Friday July 28th and fly out at about 4pm on Sunday. It's a very short stay, but it will give me the chance to meet a lot of people, which is great. It's pretty cool to finally put faces to people you've only known online.

grrrr. One of my stakes ended yesterday. I won't get into how bad it went, but it basically set me back to even for staking and I was up a lot from staking people. Anyway, I got what was left of the stake sent back to me on UB. I was hard pressed to find good games on stars, ftp and PP so I decided to play some UB. I forgot how bad UB players are. After basically not playing there for a month, I have learned to like the slower sites. At this point, I think UB is too fast. How crazy is that? I had to really focus to slow down and think through my hands...something I never used to do. It helped me to play well and I really cleaned house. I picked up about 6 or 7 buyins on UB and 1 or 2 on ftp and stars...great day! I think I am going to have trouble not playing at least some UB in the near future. Man do I hate paying them rake though.

Today I played for about an hour. I ran horribly and kept getting in setup situations. Luckily two of the major setups were against a guy who was stuck bad on stars and was playing very scared. One hand I had QQ vs his KK on a baby board w/ a short stack allin preflop. I managed to only lose 1k. It just didn't feel right. He didn't bet once, just called my bets and checked after me on the river. The other hand he had 33 vs my AK on a A32 board. He raised the flop and I was going to get all in on the turn, but the 3rd flush card hit and we both completely shut down. No more money went into that pot. I only lost a $600 pot. WOW.

Anyway, I lost about 2 buyins today. Oh well. It's gonna happen.

I'm heading down to Champaign (where U of I is) for the night. I havent been to campus since mid december ,so I am pretty pumped. Basically, all of my good friends are meeting up down there tonight, so it should be a big party. The bars are only age 19 to get in (Why? who knows, but I like it) so we are going to hit the bars hard.

Tomorrow my plan is to chill and play some MTTs and also record a new CR video. I just hope I'm not too hungover.

Today is going really well so far. The woman who is giving me work this week is working from home. She has sent me a few things to do through email, but so far I've had about 15 minutes of real work. I've mostly just been surfing the net and getting some things ready for Vegas. Also, the radio station I listen to during the day is doing an artist portrait on CCR all day long, so thats sweet.

The White Sox need to get their act together. I'm not a White Sox fan, but I am a Tigers fan. I grew up in Detroit and used to go to Tigers games all the time. It's nice to finally see them winning, let alone killing. They have never been a good team as long as I have liked them. Of course I want Detroit to edge out Chicago, but I was loving the close competition. A lot of my friends are Sox fans and it was fun to argue who was better. I believe the Sox are 8.5 games behind and have lost like 12/15 or somethign crazy like that. WTF? They are a good team on paper and should be doing much much better. Of course, it's not easy to keep up with the Tigers with how they are playing right now.

Anyway, I'm going to Vegas tomorrow. I'm excited and dissapointed at the same time. I think it will be a ton of fun, but I also think that not being 21 will put a damper on the trip. It's just so ridiculous that I can't legally drink or gamble in this country. ugggggghhhh.

I don't think I will have time for any poker today because I need to pack for Vegas and I think I might take a nap after work to catch up on some sleep.

I think I'm up 1.5 buyins for the month now. VN work Andrew! Hopefully I can pull in a few more before the month is over. I'm not very good live because the game is just too slow typically. I don't know if I'll even play much live while I'm there.

Typical of Ohare Airport, my flight was delayed and hour. I didn't mind too much. I've traveled enough in my life now that I come to expect delays. When I got to Vegas I had to wait 45 minutes for our bags to start coming onto the bealt. That was a little more annoying, because I was pumped to be tehre and wanted to get out of the airport.

So far, not being 21 has not caused me any problems. Although, I have yet to try to play poker.

When I first got here, I met up with my friend Ryan (steam boat on ub) and put my stuff up in his hotel room. He's staying at Bally's and it's a nice room with a good location. We decded to go to the Rio to check on how Taylor was doing. When we got there, we found Bill (zimba). It was good to finally meet Bill. We had a few beers and just shot the shit for awhile. David (Guacho) called me and said he was waiting for the 10/20 game at Bellagio. Ryan and I decided that we'd at least go check it out. When we got there we were far down on the list and decided to get some drinks. We ended up just drinking at the bar next to the poker room for a few hours. Spud and Pinksock showed up first. It was cool to finally meet spud. I've talked to him a ton online and I always love putting a face to the name. Pokertrip and Denny Lemuix stopped by for awhile. Finally, Taylor showed up after busting. At that point we decided that going to a strip club was a good idea. I wasn't sure if I'd get in, since I don't have an ID, but I figured it was worth a try. I ended up using one of the other guys ID's and got inwithout a problem. That was probably was a bad thing. While I had a great time, it definitely got out of control pretty quickly. Lot of alcohol, strippers and vegas don't mix that well if you want to get out cheaply.

Ryan and I are metting up with Taylor, Melissa and Guacho for lunch in a few minutes. I'm gonna try to play some poker to recoup my strip club "loses" or I may just go lay by the pool for awhile though. I'm just gonna see where the day takes me.

I also think we are going to go try to see O tonight. I'd really like to see taht show. I've seen Mysteque (no idea how to spell that) and it was a great show.

Good times.